1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an information delivery apparatus of image streams or audio streams, a stream recording apparatus, a recording system, a stream reproducing apparatus, and a record reproducing system, and in particular, relates to such one used for recording streams from a plurality of information delivery apparatuses in the form of one stream in a real time manner by a recording server.
2. Description of the Prior Art
In recent years, owing to progress in broadcasting technology, a plurality of image contents are transmitted in the form of one stream data, and users are able to view image contents selectively on receiving appliances. For example, an image recording server or the like at a broadcasting station or the like collects a plurality of AV streams obtained by shooting by a plurality of cameras and stores them temporarily. The plurality of stored AV streams are then converted to one stream by editing by a user using an authoring tool, and are delivered as one media content.
In collecting and delivering record contents via a network, a plurality of AV streams of the same instant arrive at the receiving-side user terminal at different timings due to transmission delay or the like, and therefore, it is necessary to provide many buffers at the user terminal in order to maintain synchronization of the AV streams. Japanese Laid-Open Patent Publication No. 2005-167668 discloses such a technology that, in order to reduce the number of buffers, an image delivery apparatus predicts transmission delay in advance, and data is transmitted at a timing corresponding to the predicted transmission delay.